Road and street planer



e. w. CARTWRIGHT.

ROAD AND STREET PLANER; APPLlCATlON FILED NOV-1,1916.

1,304,741. Patented May 27, 1919.

2 SHEETS-SHEET l WITNESS:

TTORNEY G. W. CARTWRIGHT. ROAD AND STREET PLANER. APPLICATION FILEDNOV-1.1916.

IN VEN TOR.

2 SHEETS-SHEET Z.

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Patented May 27, 1919.

62 05329 W Cari A TTORNEY UNrr sra rn PATENT onrion.

GEORGE W. canrwnienr, or SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA.

ROAD AND scrnnnr PLANER.

This invention relates to improvements in implements for the treatingand finishing of road, street and alley surfaces either during theoriginal construction of the same or for the purpose of maintainingtheir. proper condition after they are built.

A great many of the modern roads and streets are built with anasphaltum, oil macadam or similar surface having ayielding or elasticquality which has a tendency to roll up into waves or undulations and toform ruts or chuck holes which are extremely annoying and oftendangerous to persons traveling over the road and seriously interfereswith traflic thereon. It is a very costly and lengthy operation tosmooth out these undulations with the present day commonly used forms ofmachinery and im-' plements. As a matter of fact, the cost of treatingthe road to remove the undulations is almost prohibitive. These waves orundulations, as well as ruts or chuck holes, are, in a large measure,the result of the work of imperfect machinery, tools and implements nowemployed in the construction of roads, streets and other highways. Thus,even the best and most expensively constructed roads and streets haveslight waves or undulations at the very moment of their completion.

When automobiles and other vehicles, especially rapidly moving vehiclesare driven along such roads or streets, the wheels, with the addedweight of the vehicle and its load, gain a downward momentum or thrustas they roll along the downward inclination of th wave or undulation andbear with greater force and weight upon the trough of the wave orundulation than upon the level and smooth portions of the road orstreet.- Then as the wheel rebounds from this thrust it travels up theopposite slope Specification of Letters Patent. Patented May 27 1919.

Application filed November 1, 1916.

Serial No. 128,892.

or upward inclinationof the wave or undulation with lighterpressure andweight than upon the level-and smooth portions. This process constantlyrepeated by many vehicles .finally so increases the depth ofthe,

trough and the height ofthe wave crest thatthe-road orstreet becomesalmost impassable and must be repaired or abandoned. Ruts and chuckholes are made 1n much thesame manner. The wheel of each vveh1clepassing over the rut strikes the bottom of the rut its walls higheruntil the road or street must be rep aired.

If such streets or roads bethen rolled by the ordinary street-:or roadroller now in use, the roller bears more heavilyat the bottom ofthetrough or rut than upon the crest of the wave or rut-wall on accountof'the downward momentum or thrust at the moment of reaching the bottomof the wave trough where the upward incline commences. increase thedepth of the undulations, the only advantage derived from their usebeing the increased density of the surface rolled.

The action and effect of my improved road planer upon waves and ruts areexactly opposite to the action thereon of vehicles and of road rollersnow in use for the reason that I have provided three or more sets ofrollers on a framezvertically rigid and consecutively arranged onebehind the other so that the lower surfaces of all of the rollers areheld upon a plane with respect to each other without regard to thesmoothness or roughness of the surface over which they move. This, aswill readily be seen, prevents any single roller from dropping into awave trough or rut but on the contrary the maximum weight of the planerwill be constantly carried upon the crests of the waves or rut walls ofthe road surface. The great weight of the planer thus acting upon theyielding and usually more or less elastic surfaces of the road or streetwill smooth out the waves or undulations and give unusual density andwearing quality to the road or street.

These objects I accomplish by means of For. this reason rollers now inuse 7 such structure and relative arrangement of the parts as will fullyappear by a perusal of the following specification and claim.

Figure 1 is a top plan view of my improved form of road planer.

Fig. 2 is a side elevation of the same.

Referring now more particularly to the characters of reference on thedrawings, I provide first a supporting frame 1 which is vertically rigidand all of its connecting parts are carried as a vertical rigid unitwith the frame itself.

lVithin this frame I journal three or more sets of rollers 2, 3 and 4.These rollers are so journaled as to be rigid vertically with respect tothe frame 1 but they have horizontal movement to enable the device to beturned. This horizontal movement is provided for by means of the factthat the shafts of the said rollers are journaled in curved supports 5which extend into curved guides 6. A means for turning them in theguides at will may be provided, as, for example, worm gears '7 may beprovided within the guides meshing with racks 8 on the mem bers 5. Theseworms 7 could be operated from a common wheel 9 suitably connected withthe worms by gears and shafts as shown.

In practice the frame 1 when built will be of great weight, sayapproximately from ten to twelve tons or greater weight as may be founddesirable. It will be advanced along the road under its own power ordrawn as may be preferable. As it advances along the road it moves as asolid rigid unit since there is no vertical flexibility to the same.Being of sufficient length for the purpose, the implement will tend tomaintain itself always on a plane and hence as it advances over a roador street full of undulations it will iron the same out and leave thesurface uniformly smooth and even.

Vhile I believe that the implement itself will be suflicient to smoothout the undulations, still, if desired, it may be preceded by suitablescarifiers and road dressers. Especially would scarifie-rs and roaddressers be used in roads having a large number of chuck holes or otherout out portions which would have to be filled before the action of therollers would be of sufficient force or ef fect.

The supporting frame for the rollers being rigid and the implement as awhole having thus a tendency to maintain itself on a plane, this willcause the complete weight of the implement to at all times beardownwardly on the highest point of the road surface over which theimplement may travel. The highest undulations would therefore be rolledout first and then the succeeding similar undulations would besuccessively eliminated.

The weight of the planer may be increased by ballast to any weightdesired to meet the varying degrees of hardness or softness of the arecrests.

From the foregoing description it will readily be seen that I haveproduced such a device as substantially fulfills the objects of theinvention as set forth herein.

While this specification sets forth in cletail the present and preferredconstruction of the device, still in practice such deviations from suchdetail may be resorted to as do not form a departure from the spirit ofthe invention as defined by the appended claim.

Having thus described my invention what I claim as new and useful anddesire to secure by Letters Patent is:

A road planer comprising a rigid frame, a plurality of shafts pivotallymounted in the frame central of their length, curved guides mounted inthe sides of the frame at each end of the shafts, such guides beingradial from the vertical turning axis of the shafts radially curvedsupports'movable in the guide, and projecting therethrough each shaftbeing journaled in one pair of supports, rollers on each shaft on eachside of their central pivotal points, teeth on the outer vertical edgesof the supports, a worm meshing with the teeth on each of said supports,and means for imparting motion to the worms and supports to steer theshafts and rollers.

In testimony whereof I aflix my signature.

GEORGE WV. CARTWRIGHT.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressingthe Commissioner of Patents,

' Washington, D. C. 7

